The glamour and decadence of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and Damned fascinates me, and inspired my glistening, golden tribute to the elegant, yet decidedly self-destructive, giltzy Jazz Age of the rich and the spoilt.
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Set in the playground of New York, the magnetic young couple, Anthony and Gloria, drink and dance for days on end. They are young, rich, alive and lovely and they intend to inherit the earth.
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"I just want to be lazy and I want some of the people around me to be doing things, because that makes me feel comfortable and safe - and I want some of them to be doing nothing at all, because they can be graceful and companionable for me. But I never want to change people or get excited over them"
"You're a quaint little determinist," laughed Anthony. "It's your world, isn't it?"
"Well - " she said with an upward glance, "isn't it? As long as I'm - young."
She had paused slightly before the last word and Anthony suspected that she had started to say "beautiful". It was undeniably what she had intended.
Her eyes brightened and he waited for her to enlarge on the theme. He had drawn her out, at any rate - he bent forward slightly to catch the words.
But "Let's dance!" was all she said.
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